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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Earth Sci.

Sec. Geohazards and Georisks

Suction-Controlled Ring Shear Test of the Silt and Concrete Interface

Provisionally accepted
Yonghui  LiYonghui Li1*Chunhui  HuangChunhui Huang2Mengyao  MaMengyao Ma1Xiaotian  JiangXiaotian Jiang3Lei  RenLei Ren2
  • 1Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China
  • 2Zhengzhou Metro Group Corporation Limited, Zhengzhou, China
  • 3Shanghai Urban Construction Municipal Engineering (Group) Co., Ltd, Shanghai, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

The interface of a structural system in the soil is usually unsaturated. A decrease in the shear strength of the soil-structure interface can degrade the structure, especially under humid conditions. Studying the shear characteristics of the silt-concrete interface using a shear apparatus. Suction-controlled ring shear tests were carried out on the silt-concrete interface for three interface roughness values. The influence of the matric suction (s) and interface roughness (R) on the shear strength index of the silt-concrete interface was analyzed. The test results showed that high values of s and R improved the shear strength of the interface, but the result was affected by the net normal stress (NNS). High values of NNS and R improved the strain-hardening characteristics. NNS, s, and R significantly affected the interface shear shrinkage. The internal friction angle of the saturated interface was smaller than that of saturated silt, whereas the opposite occurred in the unsaturated state. The cohesion and internal friction angle of the interface rose with an increase in R, and they were larger than that of silt. A shear strength model of the silt and interface was established.

Keywords: Unsaturated silt, Suction control, Ring shear test, Interface roughness, Shear Strength

Received: 30 Sep 2025; Accepted: 03 Nov 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Li, Huang, Ma, Jiang and Ren. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Yonghui Li, liyonghuizzu@163.com

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